Permanently Deleted
I got big mad when I started to realize what blatant propaganda Enemy is. Just a pile of shitty stereotypes. They were hard up at Stalingrad but it never got so bad they didn't have Mosins for everyone. "Human wace" attacks are bullshit. For one, in a real war infantry die a lot. For two it's western cope about "orientalis don't value human life the same way we, The West, do". For three - backing batallions, the rear area units designed to prevent disertion, didn't work like that. They were made up of hardened troops, and they had a bunch of jobs. They weren't shooting deserters left and right - if they found someone wandering around the rear they'd send them to a gathering point and from their they'd be sent back to their unit. People were executed but the number was tiny compared to what Westoids think. Mostly it was just "alright dude enough fucking around time to go back to your unit". They were also tasked with dealing with infiltrators and any other enemies that got in to the rear area, protecting important logistical stuff. And finally, if a part of the line was getting hit hard the blocking detachment would get sent to reinforce the line. These were guys who had been through it and were considered tough, skilled, and reliable, so they could plug gaps until hopefully the situation changed. The only time they sat behind another unit and forced them forward were in cases where penal units were ordered to clear minefields and the like. Then they'd have a blocking detachment behind them to make sure they didn't try to desert.
Also, all that aside, just the idea that they were wasting good machine guns shooting their own troops is absurd.
And of course the movie has the cool sauve aristocrat Nazi trope, because of course it does. And then the moral of the story is communism can't work because two guys are both in love with Rachel Weisz. I loved it at the time but now that I am cursed with knowledge I don't think I could watch it again without criticizing every little detail. It's such an ugly way to remember the defenders of Stalingrad.
People were executed but the number was tiny compared to what Westoids think.
People were executed in every army! It was a World War and the people in charge of the armies fighting that war were not fucking around. More people were shot in the Red Army because it was so much larger than the other armies - these are really simple concepts to understand but liberals only care to try and humanize the Nazis and never the Reds for some reason.
To build on that, the red army saw the worst of it. Whatever shit the western troops were in during the most horrific parts of their non-pacific fronts was a walk in the park compared to the eastern front. Of course more people tried to get out. I don’t think that reflects poorly on the red army.
It would be interesting to have an alt-history viewer and see what desertion rates would be if it were possible to desert during an island hopping campaign. Like, I think not wanting to miss the only way off the island did more to help morale than Americans woild be comfortable with.
There were plenty of German soldiers in the concentration camps. They had a different badge than all the other prisoners. Refusing an order would get you sent to one.
What! No! Duh! The people in charge of the armies fighting that war were not fucking around.
In the badge system, they got a triangle orange badge. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Armed_forces_red_triangle.svg
I don’t understand why, if it was even true, shooting deserters is bad. Is it more humane to imprison them for 5 months and then hang them anyway after you win, or let them be tortured and shot if you lost to the Nazis, or just shoot to the kill the potential problem in the middle of a fucking brutal battle?
Like I can’t think of any military that won’t kill deserters. Maybe the US doesn’t, but I know the law allows them to. And you know no matter how humane they champion themselves, they won’t change the law, “just in case” they need to execute you.
IIRC the movie shows the soldiers being forced into a suicidal charge with no real plan or weapons and then when it inevitably fails and the survivors try to run to regroup they're shot down by their own men. In that context it's pretty bad and also obviously unrealistic.
Blocking detachments were company-to-battalion sized ad-hoc units formed from Red Army personnel, subject directly to division commander. NKVD had rear-area security units, but they were mostly tasked with guarding railway stations, supply lines and rarely used close to the frontline.
They were security troops, not front-line infantry. They were armed differently and had different missions. For example, they had lots of submachine guns but little or no artillery. They could be pushed into the line, but only in an emergency. They were attached directly to armies and not subject to the same chain of command as soldiers. The blocking detachments were commanded by officers of higher rank than would usually command such small formations.
Have you seen "Brest Fortress"? It features an NKVD garrison pulled into front line fighting at the very beginning of world war 2, and they were awesome. I know what were talking about is not treated movies like actual historical accounts, but I'm making an exception for this one.
who cares but
War_Takes (3x guest) and Liam are the worst part of WTYP. They both have this bizarre tendency to pretend the US is a historical force for progress while genuinely and sincerely believing the liberal side of pro-war US propaganda (particularly with regards to this current proxy war where we're sending the entire country of ukraine into a meat grinder so russia can't sell liquid natural gas to germany). The enemy at the gates thing coming out of liam's mouth isn't surprising since he seems to think the only reason the USSR survived WW2 is because of lend lease from united states, air superiority, etc. Liam likes to yell "Scoreboard, baby!" every time WW2 comes up because the country full of capitalists doing business with the nazis all through the 1920s and 1930s are apparently the sole reason the holocaust ended. It's a bleak kind of politics. He revels in his ignorance. the fact that his other podcast is him getting history lessons from an Afghanistan war veteran isn't helpful either.
he seems to revel in being an awful person, between near reactionary political views and basically all his stories and anecdotes revolving around being drunk or driving recklessly or driving recklessly while drunk
I think he’s been quietly replaced on that one. Even the radlib sad veteran turned Armenian nationalist couldn’t take him anymore.
Same reason I had to stop a while ago. I love Roz, and Alice reminds me of my grad school friends, but Liam is basically every annoying gen x libertarian.
everyone except roz (and the expert guest, if there is one) just make the podcast longer and more boring. constant 10 minute interruptions to talk about unfunny nothing while roz tries to gently butt in to continue actually saying interesting shit.
there's a good podcast with slides buried in WTYP, but as it is, it's terrible
I swear someone made an edit of a bunch of wtyp episodes without Liam but I can't find it.
someone should make a patreon that's just WTYP episodes edited down to roz and any expert guest
They could cut down the episodes by like 50% and be much more enjoyable to consume
i had to skip the two russia and ukraine news items in the latest episode. hearing a group of alleged leftists - and an engineer to boot - uncritically accept the "russia destroyed the kherson dam" line is ridiculous
you got liam being a reactionary who pretends to be an anarchist, and alice who's usually based can't help but become full nafo whenever russia is mentioned. it's exhausting
Rocz at least mentioned that it could have simply collapsed from neglect, only to be shut down by Alice railroading.
I like them all and we all have shit takes (and I don't think an anarchist having a strong critique of the USSR is a deal breaker as long as left unity is kept.) Liam is just the worst when he goes off the rails though.
as long as left unity is kept
I think if you're uncritically repeating cold war myths, it fails to be either "left unity" or what you'd hopefully wish to see of an "anarchist critique of the USSR". Being an anarchist doesn't mean it's legitimate for you to say soldiers were sent to the front line without guns or ammo, or that the back line was just going open season on any soldier who so much as stepped three feet back to get behind cover.
It also needs to be properly contextualised, because you can for instance draw a direct line from the famine in the early 1930s amidst massive industrialisation to the USSR winning WW2
I've been trying to not just be "liam bad", but him saying "yea I've seen Enemy at the Gates" as if it has anything of substance to say about ww2, the ussr, the battle of stalingrad, or literally anything really rubbed me the wrong way. I swear that movie is one of the most successful pieces of propaganda ever.
Between that, Alice's russophobic brainworms, and hearing them uncritically repeat the "russia blew up the dam" story without considering other very likely scenarios got me to skip most of the goddamn news
tbh I remember watching it as a lib teen and then spending a few 100 hours in Battlefield playing Soviet sniper with my brother, competing who gets the most Nazis domed.
I'll admit scenes of that movie are a kind of guilty pleasure of mine, like when Vasily snipes 5 nazis using artillery to hide was dope. But referring to the movie as a whole as anything other than heavy handed anti-soviet propaganda is a big L for liam and the pod
Now that's not fair. It also has one of the most off-putting (consensual) sex scenes ever put on film.
worse
in a recent episode he spent most of it proudly and audibly (as in randomly cheering or spouting commentary) watch a baseball game that was on instead of paying attention to the cohosts
I would rather hear someone talk about baseball when they're not supposed to than hear lib-brained takes about the USSR any day of the week so in a way he's better? (i will never listen to this podcast)
Well yeah, but I think it's like "I wish Sparta could send some of their runners to the Orioles,* their stamina is terrible!" vs interrupting the host midsentence to comment on a pop-fly.
*I just picked a team name randomly for the example, don't get mad at me
holy fuck lol its like if felix from chapo was loudly proud of playing csgo during recording. yikes.
how do u fuck that up
Liam hasn't been on Donkeys for a bit, which has been nice. it's been Tom or Francis. As an older dude Francis talking about his tomatoes or whatever warms my cold ass heart.
idk with a title like "lions led by donkeys" you kind of expect for it to be bro history, don't you?
Hollywood treating Soviets like they are Zergs and Nazis to be like Protoss in terms of quality and quantity
I don't think it's sectarianism to dunk on an illiterate radlib claiming to be an anarchist. If he had principled criticisms of MLMism then that's totally different but he's just an asshole who revels in being an asshole
That's like me bringing up the Joker from the Dark Knight to critique whatever tendency Liam pretends to subscribe to
It’s sectarian to say Liam is terrible? That whole Nate podcast universe is incredibly anti-USSR
I definitely wouldn’t say Riley is anti-USSR, I’ve been relistening to TF recently and it’s notable how many times someone will badmouth the USSR and Riley will be like “Well they did do [great achievements in reducing human suffering]”
Alice honestly seems to think “The USSR did most of the things the west accuses them of and that’s good, actually”
On WTYP, at least, there are plenty of jokes from Alice and Roz at the expense of Soviet infrastructure and planning which, to be fair, failed in some pretty dire situations (this is not particularly unusual for any massive industrializing country) - then Liam tends to jump on it and turn it into an anticommunist rant or some way to spout pro-American rhetoric
Liam is just a reactionary.
Anybody can say they're an anarchist, but someone who has never done or even mentioned mutual aid is probably not.
Liam sucks, by far the worst part of the show. When I bothered to listen I opted to just fast forward when he talks.
Hes not just a lib, hes a shite podcaster too
Like there was a episode where he drops off and just watches a baseball game lol
Well There's Your Podcast, a post about podcast disasters.
length of episode where enemy at the gates referenced: 2h 27m length of enemy at the gates: 2h 11m
It'd make a good E1 episode, especially if one of the WTYPodcast hosts just can't stop talking about how the Chinese have such inferior quality podcasts due to state mandates or whatever.
Like there was a episode where he drops off and just watches a baseball game lol
And it's not even entertaining and charming like when Felix plays CS Go during chapo episodes.
Old man popping in here for the only time with the probably boomer take but...
Imagine not being able to show up to your 'job' for two hours a week. Fuck off.
No, that's totally fair. Being a podcaster is (with some exceptions that Liam doesn't meet) by far one of the easiest jobs you can ask for unless you're doing it in like a language you don't know well or something. Having a bad day is one thing but actively dragging down the production instead of just keeping quiet is a ridiculous failure, especially since you only need to be "on" for a very short amount of time relative to common jobs.
Yeah, I'll at least give Alice that she does 3 podcasts plus Da Youtube Zone for TF. Yeah, it's not a real job per se, but personally I'd feel stress from having to "entertain" for those podcasts plus bonus episodes. Liam only does WTYP as far as I can tell, and you can't at least research something about engineering or at least turn off baseball for those 2-3 hours a week?
Felix can sometimes bother me in the same way as Liam but Liam is 10 times worse and Felix is funny
There were a few chapos a while back where Felix could not or would not stop vapping directly into his mic every 15 seconds, for the entire episode, just huffing that thing like a fucking oxygen mask.
At least Matt got his disgusting wet belching under control.
I kinda took the Enemy at the Gates thing as a joke, but he probably does believe it. Still fast forwarded through the rest of the war stuff.
My biggest problem is thay he just doesn't add anything, other than making actionable threats which need to be censored out anyway.
Many people are saying it.
lore.